


selfish prayers

by temporalDecay



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 07:39:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4513533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/pseuds/temporalDecay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Signless died, he became the Sufferer and his legacy transformed forever. But they didn't follow the Sufferer. They didn't love the Sufferer.</p>
<p>And now the anchor of their world is gone, and all that's left is wonder how long before they're gone too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	selfish prayers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aelbereth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelbereth/gifts).



> The lyrics come from Florence + The Machine's _Bedroom Hymns_.
> 
> The prompt said angst, so... angst it is!

  


* * *

  


_this is his love_

  


* * *

  


She says nothing for she has nothing to say to him. She feels it, of course, the same he does. That pulse of wretched serendipity, twisting in her gut every time she looks at him. This, she realizes, is the true depth of her despair, the real measure of her hell: he’s killed the light of her life, the center of her universe, and she is not allowed the comfort of hatred to make up for it. 

She will not fester in hatred to the end of her days, she will not even be granted the release of wrecking her vengeance upon the monster who would murder her beloved at his most vulnerable. 

She cannot kill him anymore than he could kill her, and that hideous, treacherous pulse of pity echoes inside her skull like the taunting laughter of the Captain of the ship. She cannot fight serendipity, so she stops resisting altogether. It isn’t worth it, she decides, leaning against the railing at starboard, staring unseeing at the waves cresting and falling all around them. 

Before, the sea was a comfort to her. Before, it was adventure and love and hope that their madness would bear fruit. 

But before has shriveled up and died, hanging from a torture post, an arrow hanging obscenely off its gut, and all she has is Now, bitter and sad, too monstrous to fight against, too irrevocable to deny. 

“I cannot stay,” he says, standing tall and yet oddly broken before her, and she hates the realization that serendipity broke him as much as it broke her, because she wishes to have no sympathy for him. She wishes, still, that she could hate him. “I will not stay,” he corrects, fingers twitching as he looks at her feet, rather than her eyes. “I… you should be safe, here.” He swallows hard. “ _Free_.” 

The island is lush enough to sustain her, of course, but she does not understand how he could shove her into a cage so thoroughly and not notice the bars closing in on her. Her eyes flick over to the Captain, watching them both over the port railing, smile sly and eyes dangerously unkind. She will be trouble, she thinks, one day. But she will be trouble outside her cage, which she supposes it means it’ll be someone else’s trouble. 

She's done trying to save trolls from their own idiocy; it’s not worth it in the end. 

So she turns back and disappears through the curtain of leaves, without a word, without acknowledgement. Serendipity stole away her rightful hatred for him, but nothing in this world could hope to take away her pain. 

When she begins to write, she is not trying to preserve a legacy poisoned by the cruelty of the word. She is not trying to remember better days. She is trying to piece it all together, to figure out exactly where it all went wrong. 

  


* * *

  


_this is his blood_

  


* * *

  


“I did tell you it was going to shit, you just didn’t listen.” 

The slave stares at the ghost sitting on the windowsill, drinking from her Master’s wine. Although ghost is a poor descriptor for a creature she knows better than most is solid and strong and frighteningly real. 

“You did,” she says, after clearing her throat somewhat. She’s been enforcing her silence, even as she passes from hand to hand, confident that she will outlast any stubborn seadweller who’d like to see her cry or beg or be anything other than herself. “You also made it abundantly clear that I did not have a choice in the matter, either way.” 

The girl – and that is what she looks like, and what makes her all the more monstrous because of it – hums in the back of her throat before shrugging. In one hand, she holds her Master’s favorite cup. In the other, a pair of wands. And when she yawns, rudely and without bothering to hide it, one would be forgiven to not think of her as the bottomless fountain of despair she truly is. 

“None of us have any choice,” she says, feet swinging lazily. “That’s the point.” 

Bizarrely, the slave smiles. It’s one of those kind, insufferable smiles that drove the girl to her, in the first place, and even now, despite the certainty of how futile the attempt would be, it temps the girl whose power knows no equal in this land, to reach out and rewrite the script so that the slave’s wrists no longer sag under the weight of cuffs. 

“We always have a choice, although it might not be the choice we’d want,” she says, tilting her chin upwards with a solemn, quiet dignity that no one will be able to beat out of her bones. “He chose to believe, and I now choose to not regret believing in him.” 

“It will get worse,” the girl replies, somewhere between affronted and vaguely concerned. “So much worse.” 

The slave takes a moment to remember the moments that lead up to now. To remember her child and his friends and their journey. She remembers the sunsets and the sunrises, the miracle of hope blooming in someone’s eyes and the promise of a reckoning in her son’s words. 

“That will be then,” she says, with a finality that makes the girl, who is not a girl and hasn’t been for eons now, feel oddly ashamed of herself. “And this is now. I’ve made my choice.” 

The silence stretches, as they stare at each other and the history bubbling just under the surface. 

“You were kind to me,” the girl says, at long last, hopping off her perch and placing the cup back where it belongs. “You didn’t have to and I’ve never given you reason for it, but you’ve always been kind to me. Because it’s your nature to be kind.” 

“It’s not,” the slave replies, folding her hands over her lap with a wry smile. “Kindness is a choice, not a vocation. Much like your cruelty, my dear.” 

“You’ve been kind to me,” the girl goes on, unrelenting, “but I can’t repay it, not like you’d deserve it or I’d want it to. So I’ll make a promise, instead, to repay cruelty to those who’ve hurt you, when the moment’s right.” 

“Is that the choice you make?” The slave asks, idly reaching a hand to brush the girl’s bangs off her eyes. “I thought you didn’t believe in choices.” 

“I have no choice on what will happen,” the girl replies, leaning into the touch without meaning to, “but I have a choice about how I handle it, I suppose.” 

She leaves, then, to never come back. Because it’s something to love someone you know you’ll destroy, and it’s something else entirely to love a slave that seems to have more freedom than you do. 

  


* * *

  


_this is his body_

  


* * *

  


“Good night, my pet,” says the Empress, walking into the Helm to inspect her most prized possession and the key to the expansion of her Empire. “Have you had time to reconsider?” 

Every night, from that first night centuries ago, the Empress asks. 

“Yes,” he says, breathless and venomous, “and the answer is still fuck you. Fuck your Empire. Fuck your crown. Fuck you, fuck you, _fuck you!”_

Every night, from that first night centuries ago, the Helmsman answers, until his voice becomes garbled, screechy nonsense. 

“Swear yourself to me,” the Empress says, mock patiently, fingering his lips delicately. “Say you have forsaken him, his memory and his legacy. Swear and I promise you’ll be free again.” 

Every night, from that first night centuries ago, the Empress taunts him, tempts him with lies so transparent they should not be as sweet as they are, sometimes. 

“ _Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you_ ,” he screams in the hoarse half tones of the damned, buries the litany of hatred into the Empress’ mouth when she kisses him lightly, gently, like dew. 

And every night, from that first night centuries ago, the Empress laughs and he cries and the cycle goes on and on, madness and rage, echoing the note of deranged despair of the lone troll hanging from the post. 

  


* * *

  


_such selfish prayers, i can't get enough_

  


* * *

  



End file.
